After Effects
by alanabloom
Summary: Your mom dies. Piper leaves. That turns out to be the answer to a question you will get asked a lot over the next several years: "What the **** happened to you, Vause?"
1. Chapter 1

Your chest cracks clean open and this is what comes out:

"Please don't leave. Not now."

Piper leaves anyway.

Piper _leaves_.

You really, _really_ didn't think she would.

The door closes behind here and for some reason that is what brings the tears, a tidal wave rolling up your throat, stinging in your eyes, but you bite the inside of your lip and fight them, don't _dare_ let them fall. If you cry right now, you'll be crying for her, not just your mom, and_fuck_ that, fuck _her_, she doesn't deserve any part of it.

Instead you scream, just once, sharp and frightened. It might be loud enough for her to hear, maybe she's still standing there in the hotel hallway waiting for the damn elevator. Maybe she hears, maybe not. Either way she doesn't come back.

Your mom dies. Piper leaves.

That turns out to be the answer to a question you will get asked a lot over the next several years: _What the fuck happened to you, Vause_?

* * *

In the end, you have to call Fahri. His voice is crisp and impatient, he's asking about Istanbul, if you have that shit figured out yet, but eventually you string the words together and explain.

For a fraction of a moment, you're worried that you won't get to leave, that this job doesn't work like that, with time off for family emergencies - you've never had occasion to test it before. But Fahri makes a sympathetic sound, changing his tone immediately. He says it's fine, he'll take care of things.

"You two go ahead and fly back, don't worry about things here for a few days."

You don't have it in you to correct him, to admit the _other_ loss. All this, all at once; it seems to reflect badly on you, somehow.

He offers to make arrangements - he likes to throw money around, to be the one _taking care of things_ - but you don't let him because he'd be buying two seats on the plane.

So you book a first class ticket, call your aunt, pack up the hotel room. You have two drinks in the airport bar and order another as soon as you sit down on the plane. You stay awake for the eight hour flight, no earbuds, no open book in your lap, just sitting and still, _still _not letting yourself cry, because you still can't be sure some of the tears won't be for her.

* * *

It's dark when you step outside the airport, and nothing feels quite real, as if you're looking at the world from behind a pane of glass.

Then suddenly your Aunt Clara is there and she's hugging you and messy crying and referring to your mother as her _baby_ _sister_, and you're too out of it to say what you want: _Shut the fuck up, stop fucking crying, you hated her, you never helped when we had no money and you hated it even more when I made sure she had plenty, she made fun of your hair and your boring husband and your snotty suburban kids stop crying stop crying stop crying._

Her youngest son is driving. You haven't seen him since he was maybe seven years old, and now he's a slouchy, shaggy haired college kid who, if nothing else, looks like the type to always carry around weed. You make a note of that for later, just in case.

For all her emotional distress, Clara doesn't stop talking the whole drive, recounting her heroic efforts, which amounted to answering the phone and driving to the hospital, in between prying for information: "You were flying from, where, Paris? Hmmph. Last I heard you were on some island...honestly, I was relieved I was even able to get in touch, God knows how we'd have found you. Di never did explain what it is you do that has you traveling so much..." She trails off, waiting for you to clarify. Getting nothing, she continues, "You know, Ted and I are thinking of traveling to Paris for our anniversary next summer."

At that, you choke on a laugh. You'd flown your mother out to Greece on vacation last year, to spend a week with you and Piper, and a month later she'd called gleefully to explain that, out of nowhere, imagine the fuck out of this, Clara was goading her husband into a Greek vacation.

Unbidden, the thought floats through your head - _can't wait to tell Mom this one_ - and a nanosecond later the laughter freezes in your chest.

It's not that you forgot. You couldn't possibly forget, especially right now, when you've been awake for twenty-four hours and are stuck in a car with relatives you'd never see under other circumstances. The dark knot of knowledge is everywhere - chest, guts, lungs - and yet somehow it hasn't flipped an off switch on your instincts.

They drop you off at your mom's house, the two story Craftsman in - and this is important - one of the _nice_ neighborhoods in town. That had been a point of pride when you bought it. The school bus route that runs through these street is the same one that used to drop off the little girls who used to torture you about your thrift store jackets and off brand shoes.

"Always thought this place was a bit big for her," Clara deems fit to muse aloud as her son pulls up at the curb. "After all, anything would have felt roomy after that dreadful apartment...well, I suppose you'll have to deal with the sell now."

You hate that you have to _thank_ her for anything, but you do it and get the hell out of the car.

Your mom's car is parked in the driveway, probably the oldest vehicle on her block by at least a decade. For the past two years she's been stubbornly insisting she doesn't need a new one, but you've been expecting to get that call any day now that hers had broken down for good, proving you right.

It's bizarre, how the house manages to smell just like the old apartment. You hadn't grown up here, but it smells like home and childhood anyway, in that inexplicable way people's house's carry their scent. For just a second you breathe in too deeply and it nearly brings you to your knees.

You drop your suitcases. You grab onto the frame of the door.

You're okay, you're okay, you're okay.

There's a half full bottle of wine in the kitchen, and you drink the rest without pausing. Your phone died on the plane, so you pull your charger out of a bag and plug it in in the kitchen.

It takes five minutes for the phone to turn back on, long enough to start on a new bottle. When the screen lights up, you wait.

No new voicemails. Not even a text.

That's fine.

You're okay, you have a plan: drink more, let the phone charge, sleep in the guest room like always, wake up and go to the funeral home, just get this done, just get through it, you're okay. You keep the wine in one hand and the phone in the other, like you're waiting for something, but it never rings.

But a bottle of wine later, the alcohol sloshing around on top of nothing else in your stomach, you have to stumble, phone in hand, into the closest bathroom, through your mom's bedroom. You crash onto your knees on the tile, and the last thing you think before emptying the liquid contents of your stomach is that it smells even more like her, like the cheap Wal-Mart perfume she's been using for decades, since she was able to use her employee discount to buy it.

Your stomach clenches and unclenches, chest heaving. You're making dry gagging noises that slowly start to thicken into something worse, something awful, dying animal sounds. Your eyes are hot and your face is wet and you're crying, finally crying: big, gulping baby sobs that slice through you like hot blades.

You're on the floor of your mother's bathroom, crying and drunk and alone. Your phone's somehow ended up between your knees, and it still won't fucking ring.

* * *

You sleep in your mom's bed, and the next morning you go to the funeral home and spend the money you'd set aside to buy your mom a new car on a casket and flowers and embalming fees.

The somber faced funeral director asks if you want an open casket, and your mom's voice comes back to you, ten years ago, whispering in your ear at some funeral visitation for one of her friends' mother. _Al, did you see the fucking make up caked on that old woman? Babe, don't ever let every goddamn person we know parade by to look at my dolled up corpse, yeah? I mean it, I will haunt your ass for eternity._

"She wouldn't...I, I don't want an open casket visitation."

"That's perfectly fine. Would you like to set up a private viewing, just for you and any other family, before the funeral?"

Without even thinking about it, the answer slips out. "Yes. Just...just me."

He takes the photo you brought and promise you'll be pleased with how she looks, and a scream curls and sticks in your throat at the idea. You don't want to see her like that, of course you don't, but you aren't going to explain to this man that you haven't actually seen your mother in six months, and you can't deal with the thought of not getting one more look at her.

You drive back to the house and smoke on the porch, just giving yourself an hour. You don't want to do shit, you want to buy up a liquor store and turn off your fucking phone and not think, but you've got to call the lawyer and figure out food for the wake and deal with all the other details they don't tell you that come packaged with death.

The phone still doesn't ring, and you're sick of holding it in your hand doing nothing. There's one saved voicemail from your mom, from five days ago, so you lift it to your ear and press play.

_Hiya, kiddo. Just callin' to check in. And to tell you I ran into Darla Wedge at the grocery store, you know, whats-her-face's mom, the bratty cheerleader looking one. I'll tell you all about it, you'll love it. Just gimme a call whenever. Love you, babe. Be safe, and tell Piper I say hi._

Your throat is tight and your eyes are wet, but by the end it's all you can do not to hurl the phone onto the sidewalk.

This is all you have. There are no home videos, and her own voicemails are always automated. Which means you'll never be able to hear your mother's voice again without thinking of Piper.

* * *

The funeral home's interior is stiff and floral everything. The funeral director leads you to a large room filled with antique couches and chairs, arranged in perfect symmetry, boxes of Kleenex on every end table. There's a small viewing room offset from the larger one, and your legs turn to water just at the thought of what's in there.

"We've got forty-five minutes until we should leave for the cemetery," the undertaker says solemnly. "So take your time."

Then he leaves you alone.

It takes ten minutes for you to work up the nerve to walk into the small room where the half open casket is waiting. You're okay.

You just get a glimpse - she's in the position you know from movies, eyes closed, hands folded formally over her stomach - and a strangled sound lurches out of you, the word _Mom_ rounding in your throat like a sob.

Something's crashing against your chest; an anchor, gravity, your own heart. You spin out of the door frame, back to the waiting area, and your knees hit the ugly dull carpet. The air is slamming against your lungs and ricocheting out again, too fast, not settling. Your vision goes white at the edges.

You were wrong, you can't do this, not by yourself. Your phone is in your hand, it's always in your hand, and your fingers are trembling as you scroll through contacts.

It rings once and dimly, crazily, you think they're gonna have to push back the funeral they're gonna have to give her time to get here it'll take a few hours. But the second ring hits your ears and you hang up before it quiets, the abrupt recognition of your own weakness shocking you out of the panic attack. You're disgusted with yourself, for needing her, for wanting her here, but you still stay crouched on the floor for five minutes, waiting for her to see the missed call and dial back, to put it together in her goddamn college brain what today must be.

She doesn't, and you're so fucking furious at yourself that it makes it easier to pull it together, to stand up and leave the phone on the carpet and walk back into the viewing room and this time get all the way up to casket. The tears come, silent and steady and under control, the sort of crying you're supposed to be doing right now.

* * *

There's a smattering of unfamiliar family at the funeral. Clara and her husband and kids (all of whom are younger than you because she waited until marriage and a respectable age to have children), a smattering of your mom's cousins, an occasional great aunt or uncle.

Better than them are your mom's friends, the parade of women with hunched shoulders and chapped hands from decades of cashier and restaurant work, women you recognize from weekly poker games your mom always brought you to.

Someone's hand lands on your shoulder, and as soon as you turn around you're pulled into a hug by Beth, your mom's best friend. The two of you had stayed at her apartment three different times after getting evicted. She used to sneak you extra fries when you visited at Friendly's. And now she's hugging you, this drawn out, tender hug, and calling you "Lex, baby," she's the only person in the world who calls you that, and it all feels so goddamn maternal you nearly buckle under the touch.

Beth pulls away but doesn't let go of your arms. "I'm so, so sorry, baby. What a shit, huh? An _aneurysm_. So fucking unfair."

You can't manage an answer, so you just nod. Beth puts a rough, cool hand on your cheek. "Oh, honey. Look at you. So goddamn pretty." Her eyes dart behind you, like she's looking for someone. "Di said you got yourself a girl? That it's pretty serious?"

"She isn't..." The word wrestle in your throat, not wanting to get free. "She's not here." Like it's all a matter of logistics.

"Oh." Beth makes a sad face, feeling sorry for you for the wrong thing.

Quickly, you change the subject. "Come sit up front. In the family pew."

"No, no, I don't wanna give Clara a stress episode. I'll sit with the girls...and we're gonna go straight to your house after the cemetery, get everything set up, alright? Don't worry about a thing, honey, you just take care of yourself."

You don't tell her you always do. You can barely admit even to yourself that for once, you're wishing you didn't have to.

And you hate yourself for the way you keep watching the door.

* * *

The funeral is short in the church and short at the graveside, and you spend it gnawing an indention onto the inside of your lower lip and not crying not crying _not_ crying.

The house fills up for the wake, and Beth and the other poker game women play hostess as promised. You just have to stand there, and everyone drifts over to offer condolences. Your voice sounds dull and distant when you thank them, and luckily you seem messed up enough that no one asks any questions about where you live and what you do now.

All at once you notice Fahri, hovering ominously in a corner, drinking wine from your mom's glasses, and for a second the incongruity of seeing him here, in your mother's house, shocks you out of the fog you're in.

You excuse yourself from some neighbor and cross the room. "What are you doing here?"

He lifts an eyebrow. "Paying my respects." He gives the room a pointed scan. "Where's Piper?"

"Gone." Just that, the single word a shard of broken glass lodged in your throat.

He _mmm_'s at that. "Shit timing." He takes a sip, then asks, "She gonna be a problem?"

For a second you want to slap him. "No." You remember to lower your voice to a hiss, "Wasn't that the whole fucking point of the Brussels drop? That she couldn't be a problem?"

"It was." Then, without missing a beat, "How long do you think you'll be here?"

The fog starts settling again. "I don't know."

"You can grieve, Vause. We want that. But you've got work to do." Your face must show how little you can focus on work, because he changes the subject. "Thought I might see Burley here."

You nearly blurt out _who?_ before you realize he's talking about your father. Fuck, that didn't even occur to you. "_Right_. He's probably nodding out in some shithole van with the other addicts."

Fahri gives a short, low laugh. "Addicts paid for this house, kiddo. Don't shit on the addicts." He squeezes you on the shoulder. "Can you meet us in Barcelona in a week?"

In spite of the phrasing, it doesn't sound like a question. You nod.

* * *

The house empties out slowly. When you hug your aunt goodbye you think vaguely that you'll probably never see her again. Actually, that's probably true of all these people.

Beth stays the longest. She's tipsy and tearful and in the mood to reminisce, but after a half hour or so she must notice you're close to losing it because she stops mid-sentence and pats your hand apologetically.

Then she's gone and it's over, this horrible awful day. So you set about drinking everything left in the house. When you're good and wasted it suddenly seems like a good idea to start packing things up, after all you'll be leaving in a week.

Which is how you end up in your mom's closet, crying over a stack of work uniforms, every one still pinned with a nametag, DIANE DIANE DIANE. You're shaking like something seismic has released in your body, chest spasming with violent sobs, and you're wondering why the hell she would keep these.

You drink more and you can't stop crying. Eventually you're drunk enough that your brain starts to get everything twisted: you end up missing Piper and hating your mom for leaving, but no, that's wrong, reverse it. Stop thinking about her. Stop wanting her here. Get a fucking grip.

* * *

In the end, you make an impulsive decision and stick to it: you aren't selling the house.

You aren't ready, not now, definitely not within a week. Instead you drive to the apartment in Northampton. You own it, it'll be easier to sell, and really you don't need two home bases. Especially don't need one here.

It feels stuffy and too quiet, but there's something else. Your brain is dulled from the drive, so it's not until you wander into the bedroom that you figure it out: her stuff is gone.

Just like that, rage pools in your gut, hot and bubbling. She was here, less than three hours away, rifling through drawers and stuffing her left behind clothes into bags, removing all evidence that she ever shared a life with you, maybe at the same time you were calling her from the floor of a funeral home, kneeling ten feet away from your mother's body.

_Fuck_ her.

You go into the kitchen and hurl the toaster at the wall, just to watch its poorly reassembled pieces shatter.

* * *

A/N: I was going to make this a oneshot, but I decided to space it out into short-ish sections so I could have a little bit of breathing room between writing. Would love to hear what you think so far, I've been wanting to write about this period for Alex forever.


	2. Chapter 2

**Trigger** **Warning**: Vivid drug use/addiction

* * *

You take your mother's old leather jacket, soft and frayed by its decades of life, and probably not actually worn by her since you were a teenager. You pin three of her work nametags to the inside of the jacket, stacked on top of each other and pressed against your ribs. You wear it on the plane and keep a hand shoved in the pocket, clicking fingernails against the plastic on the other side of the fabric.

You want to be happy about getting back to your life, should be happy about it. It's been a long, silent week, moving between the Northampton apartment and your mom's house, packing and drinking and pawing through memories.

It's a habit you can't seem to shake off. The plane ascends and you're thinking of how tight Piper gripped your hand the first time you traveled together, how you'd laughed at her and nudged her shoulder teasingly.

Uh, Pipes, you have been on a plane before, right?

Yes, just...not flying over the ocean.

You'll be happy to hear they use the same kind of planes.

You put in your earbuds, but every song seems to be from some record your mom used to play around the apartment, telling you stories of following bands across the country and living for concerts, making it sound like magic but never like she had any regrets about giving it up. Or else it's that Paul Simon song Piper loved so much, and suddenly you're right back in the apartment kitchen, watching her dance around in a Smith hoodie and no pants, all on her own, drunk on too many Happy Hour margaritas, looking so goddamn young and giddy.

You shut the music off and make unsuccessful attempts to sleep until Barcelona. A wave of relief flutters through you when you step off the plane, back to the familiar routine of airports and customs and baggage claim. You're ready to get back to work. You're ready to stop thinking about this.

Of course, it doesn't actually work like that.

* * *

Here's the worst of it: you miss Piper more.

No, that's not right, you tell yourself that isn't right: you feel her loss more.

She's the one gone from your everyday life, the one who's unraveled everything that had gotten comfortable. Sometimes you wake up and reach for her, find nothing, and have to remember all over again. It immediately makes you want to call your mom - to cry, to rant, to be told unequivocally that you're right and Piper's wrong - and then you have to remember that, too.

All that remembering makes it really hard to get out of bed.

You barely remember what this was like before Piper, what it was you loved about it. Whatever it was - that rush of power, the self-satisfaction of your own skill, the pulse of wildness - you can't access it now. You go through the motions. You get it done, but just barely.

"What the fuck's going on with you, Vause? You've been back three weeks." Fahri makes weeks sound like years. "You have to pull your shit together."

"I didn't realize it wasn't."

"Kubra claims he didn't get confirmation on the Berlin drop until two hours before the plane took off."

"She was on the fucking plane, wasn't she?"

"It's sloppy. And that's not like you." The sternness in his expression fades a little, and he wraps a paternal arm around your shoulder. "You need to come out with us. Relax. Hell, fuck one of the kids if it'll make you feel better." He means the mules.

So you do. You join them in VIP rooms at exclusive nightclubs or parties in luxurious penthouse suites. You drink expensive cocktails. You fuck a couple of the drug mules and, once, a client's girlfriend. They blur together into a faceless mass, all these young girls, bright eyed and thrilled at finding themselves swept up in such excitement.

It is the same life it has always been, with it's power and riches and luxury but suddenly you can't see any fucking point to any of it. This used to make you feel untouchable, but you clearly aren't. People die, people leave, and there's not a goddamn thing you can do about it. You only managed to give your mother a handful of years where, for once, she didn't have to worry about money, didn't have to work herself ragged. You took Piper all over the world, and you loved her for exactly who she was and not where she came from or who she was supposed to be and it still wasn't fucking good enough.

So what is the fucking point?

* * *

Barcelona becomes London. Another city. Another opulent hotel suite. Another empty bed and a still silent phone.

It's been five weeks, and you still can't see past it. It pisses you off, that you can't stop feeling so fucking beaten, but even the anger feels muted and inaccessible. Sometimes you wake yourself up crying at three in the morning, like sleep is the only time your body is allowed to feel something.

There's a party, at the penthouse of a luxury hotel rented by some mild celebrity client, and there's a girl. She's blonde and tall and from across the room she looks like Piper.

You push your glasses up on your head, let her and everyone else blur at the edges. You walk up to her, to the girl who isn't Piper, and it feels like you're an actor playing yourself: say the lines, smile, laugh, touch her arm. What a brilliant performance.

It works, like it always does. You end up in one of the dozen bedrooms holding her head between your legs, muttering occasional instructions. You wind your fingers through soft blonde hair, you can't see her face, this all feels familiar, you're a little drunk, and for just a second your touch gentles into something soft and tender, the syllables of Piper's name curling your lips.

The instinct cracks you open, and you jerk your hands back, pressing trembling fingers over your eyes and letting out a shuddering breath.

The girl's tongue is a cautious, probing thing, too slow and too light, leaving you with only a faint throbbing, far from satisfied, but suddenly you're closer to crying than coming. "Stop, stop, hey..."

The blonde lifts her head, lips wet, eyes wide and uncertain and so eager to please. "Sorry, is it not...is this not right?"

"No, no, that was good...c'mere..." The actress playing you draws her up and kisses her, but pulls away quickly. The room suddenly feels crowded with Piper's presence, and you're left feeling shaky and exposed and so, so sick of yourself.

The girl leans off the bed, grabbing her discarded clutch. She sits back up, rummaging in the small, shiny purse, then smiles in triumph, unfolding her palm to reveal several small, tightly tied plastic bags of powder.

She pours one out across a compact mirror; for the first time, you notice her pupils are pinholes. She's just maintaining. "Want a bump?"

"No, thanks." It's a reflex.

The girl leans forward, finger closing one nostril, and draws the line up her nose through a tight roll of paper, held together with a rubber band. When she finishes, she grins at you, glazed and sheepish, misinterpreting your refusal. "I know it's not as good as shooting." She giggles, embarrassed. It makes you realize she's younger than you thought, not possibly over twenty-one. "But I've always been scared of needles."

She opens another bag and arches a seductive eyebrow. "You sure?" She leans back on the bed beside you, sprinkling the powder across her sternum and offering you the paper.

Maybe it's true you've always hated these people, always viewed their weakness with scorn. Piper used to ask you that: Don't you ever feel bad about it? You don't want to think about the unease on her face when you said no, that it was their own choice, that if you didn't do it someone else would. Fuck her. What did she know about it? The clients, the addicts, they're losers like your father. Fuck them. Fuck her and fuck them but also fuck you, because lately you're as weak as they are. Weaker. Pathetic.

So what the fuck is the point?

You take the roll from the girl and lean over, splaying one hand across her breast, provoking a low, happy humming sound. You snort the drug the way you've seen a million people do a million times.

You've seen this enough to know what to expect. Snorting is a slow rise, a build to the peak, like waiting for an orgasm. It's a gradual, blissful sedation. The Girl Who Isn't Piper is kissing you, straddling a leg across your lap, and you kiss back without thinking about it. An odd, warm drowsiness starts to settle throughout your body, like everything bad that's taken root in your body is falling asleep without difficulty. It feels like the careful unraveling of some gnarled, black knot that's been sitting in your chest.

You can still hear the music from the party, a fucking great song is playing, the kind of song that feels like reckless joy. It starts to occur to you that you're in a beautiful city at a great party and there's a girl on your lap, a girl who's pretty and young and who wants you. And why wouldn't she, you are fucking brilliant, you are rich and powerful and you could take her all over the world if you were so inclined, who wouldn't want that? The girl makes her way down your body, tries again, and this time you tell her what to do - "Harder, right there, more pressure, yeah, yeah that's it, yes" - and let her finish, let her build a pressure and finally release. And fuck it feels amazing, you feel so damn good, you are alive and powerful and there's a pretty girl on top of you whose name you don't remember. You feel good. You're okay.

You snort another line off the girl's arm and go down on her, give her a turn, but you're getting tired and keep losing focus. Your eyelids are heavy, but you still manage to swirl your tongue around her clit in fierce, lapping strokes and her legs spasm as she comes. You lick your lips and grin, you're so fucking good, life is pretty great, you've been an idiot not to see that, to not enjoy sex and music and parties. And money. And London. You remember that feeling from the past month, it's not that you don't, but it feels so distant. A silhouette. Shadow pain. This girl is so pretty, you like her and you like her drugs but you don't want to know her name and you don't mind if she stays. She's someone who can leave. That's so important, that's the secret, that's what you have to find. People you don't mind leaving.

* * *

You wake up with a slight headache and a touch of nausea but that's nothing compared to the afterglow. That feeling, thateverything is good feeling, is gone, but the memory of it is fresh enough that you believe in it. It's something to hold.

Oddly, perversely, it makes you feel more in control. You can't bring your mom or Piper back, but you can stop feeling terrible about it. You made the choice. The past month you've felt so fucking helpless, but not anymore.

The mistake the addicts make is that they let the drug control them, not the other way around. They put themselves at the mercy of the powder, the needle, the dealer. You're smarter than that. You know to wait, to live off the memory, the knowledge that yes, there is something you can do.

You wait a week, until the next party, the next girl. You spread the lines yourself, lean over and breathe in. This is your doing, your choice, you are drugging the sadness silent, you aren't letting it win.

Everything is great. You don't need Piper, this was never about her, anyway, this was about the adrenaline, the power, the rush, and it's all coming back. Your mom would want you to be happy, and Piper...fuck her. It's ruining everything good in your life. Fuck that. It's the only thing good in your life. Fuck her for making you forget that.

* * *

It's good for three months. You're you again, not some poor, hollow substitute. You make all your drops, finesse arrangements, everything clicks and everything works and you remember how good it feels to be good at this. Fahri's pleased, Kubra's satisfied, the money's rolling in. Everything is fine. Everything is good.

You're smart about the drugs, keeping it under control. Space it out, don't IV, don't build up a tolerance. It's not like it's difficult.

Then your mother's birthday comes and you use four days in a row so you don't have to think about the car you're never going to buy her, the fact that you're not there to put flowers on her headstone, the fact that it wouldn't even matter if you were, what a piss poor birthday gift. She would have been fifty. What a shit fucking deal.

After the three day run, you take a break for a day and start to feel anxious and shaky and sick. It scares the shit out of you, the physical craving, the way your body wants something without your consent. It's enough to make you decide to quit.

It's bad for three days. You're living on an edge, all achey muscles and nervous fingers, but it's nothing like full tilt withdrawal, you know enough to be grateful for that, to recognize it's good to stop while this is still the worst of it.

* * *

But the calendar is full of landmines.

Six months after Paris you end up there again, in the same damn hotel, and it's where you're staying when Piper's birthday rolls around. She's in your head all day, you can't get her out. Can't stop wondering what she's doing. Probably out with fucking Polly, Polly who always hated you, Polly who's probably spent the past six months telling Piper what a great decision she made, setting her up on dates with men as a reward.

You mark the day by getting black out drunk at a nightclub with Fahri and a few others, the memory of the night just cutting off at around two a.m. You wake up in bed, tucked under the covers but still in your clothes.

Your mom's leather jacket is gone.

You search the hotel room and scramble through your memory, but you don't even remember leaving the club. You know you had it on, but it's not here. Panic balloons between your lungs, hangover instantly trumped by full blown anxiety.

You pull on jeans and a V-neck and walk to the club in last night's makeup, your hair in a knotted, sweaty clump at the top of your head. You bang on the locked door until someone opens it, a busboy with a mop who doesn't speak English. You're too frazzled to remember a single word of French, and for a moment the two of you yell pointlessly at each other until you pull out a wad of Euros and thrust them at him. The guy shrugs and moves aside, shaking his head like you're a crazy person. You move on shaky legs through the club until you find the jacket, wadded in a corner booth in the VIP room.

The relief hits you in a wave of tears, and you fall onto the booth with your face pressed to the jacket's neck, fingers scrambling inside to check for the familiar jangle of nametags.

You pull the jacket on and leave the club, nodding at the busboy, calm enough now to remember how to say, "Je sues désolée. Merci."

Dimly, you think you never had mornings like this after using smack. Fucking alcohol almost cost you more than heroin ever did.

* * *

And then sometimes there's no excuse. No birthday, no holiday, nothing significant. Sometimes you just wake up feeling like your insides are rotted with loneliness and grief and anger that has nowhere to go.

It's one of those weeks, where you feel only half present, where memories start to feel like cuts in your mouth you can't stop tonguing.

You end up backstage at a concert in Frankfurt with Fahri and the band, English rockstars who are apparently top customers. It's a glammed up version of that scene from years and years ago, the first and only time you met your father, except this a giant concert hall instead of a dingy, neon lit bar, and these guys are young, at the peak of their career, not has beens making desperate attempts to hold on.

Yet the memory still clouds your vision, makes your hands clench into fists with anger over the fact that your father - your drug addict, idiot father - is alive somewhere, and your mom isn't.

When the drummer readies a fresh syringe and holds it out, your standard refusal catches in your throat. You take it, and you don't look at Fahri, his amused condensation, his _oh how the mighty have fallen_ smile.

Tie the tourniquet. Find a vein. Insert the needle. You pull the plunger back slowly and blood bubbles into the syringe. That means you're in the right place.

When you push the plunger in, you tell yourself it's an act of will, of strength. Your doing. Your choice.

This is different than before; it's an immediate, overwhelming rush of euphoria. Instant fix, instant happiness.

* * *

You're still careful. You make rules. Once a week. No, okay, twice a week, one weekend, then mid-week, space it out. Don't use on important work days. Not before travel.

You stick to the rules. Everything's fine. Everything's great. Life is easy. You start to snag some of the product, and it's so goddamn easy, the stuff is everywhere. It keeps you happy. When you're high, you're convinced it's the best feeling the world has to offer, and you can give yourself that.

It's better than that sound Piper used to make when she came.

Better than your mom's laugh on the phone.

Better than waking up in the middle of the night and burrowing against Piper's back, breathing her in.

Better than your mom hugging you outside the airport.

Better than Piper saying _I love you_.

Better than your mom saying _Promise me you're bein' safe, babe_.

It's better it's better it's better, you keep telling yourself that it is.

* * *

The one year anniversary rolls around. One year since your mom died - you try to tell yourself it's the only part that matters.

You never understood the big deal about anniversaries, it's just a date, it's not like she's - _they're_ - anymore gone than usual. But it makes the loss feel oppressive, like their names are hanging in the air and making it hard to breathe. You can't get away from it, there's no way to escape a date on a calendar.

It's not one of your days to use, so you sneak off to the bathroom and snort a line after lunch. You've only IV'ed for months now, so you tell yourself this doesn't count, it's a compromise. You deserve it.

You still end up sitting in the bathroom of your luxury hotel suite at midnight, a little tipsy, with your phone in your hand. You never deleted your mother's number; at first because it just didn't occur to you, but by the time you remembered there was no way to go about the deletion without it feeling like a symbolic moment. You could practically feel the camera, the close up on the phone, lingering as the name disappeared.

So it's still there. They both are, _Mom_ and _Pipes_, and usually it's a toss up as to which is more useless.

But it doesn't have to be. You could call her. You wonder if she even realizes what today is, if she bothered to make a note when she walked out. You don't have a choice in remembering - the date's carved on a headstone.

Fuck her. Fuck her fuck her _FUCK HER_, you should get that tattooed on your body and maybe then you could stop thinking it so much.

You've got a phone in one hand and a syringe in the other. It's not one of your days, you used two days ago (this afternoon doesn't count, it _doesn't_) and you're flying out to Kiev in the morning. It's fucked up, it's twisted: the phone feels like a gun waiting to be fired, but the needle is the surrender, the resolution, the agreement to keep things peaceful.

Put that way, it's an easy choice.

You put the phone down, take your hand off the trigger, and instead wrap a leather belt around the pale skin of your bicep. Push in the needle. Check for blood. Release the tourniquet with your teeth and inject. Let your head fall back against the shower door and sigh, pure relief.

You still want to call her. You want to laugh at her and tell her how much better this feels. Better than her. It seems like a great idea, everything you think of seems brilliant, so you pick up the phone. Her number is still pulled up, all you have to do is click CALL.

You don't care that she doesn't answer, but you like hearing her voice, telling you to leave a message and she'll get back to you.

* * *

**A/N**: Decided to make this a three parter, conclusion will be up soon!


	3. Chapter 3

It has officially been _two_ _years_.

No excuses now. You shouldn't care anymore. You should be impervious. Toughened up.

But you bruise easily. By the smallest things: a whiff of a smell, a song on the radio, a hotel that looks too much like another hotel. Once, in public, a stranger's laugh had sent his head whipping around, eyes darting wildly for someone who had no reason to be there.

Time hasn't healed the wound, so you take a needle and stitch it up yourself, again and again.

* * *

There is a girl.

Blonde, tall, one of the mules. You fuck her three times during a party, then spontaneously bring her along to Budapest. Fahri laughs at you, says you have a type. You know the type he means - _girls who look like her_ - but you're high most of the trip, so it doesn't bother you, nothing bothers you.

She has a thing for the needle, is as addicted to it as anything else, and she likes to be the one to inject you. You let her; to you it makes no difference. You don't care about the ritual. You're all about the end game. Results are what matter.

She is pretty and young and she wants you. She's a real addict, you feel a little sorry for her; always ducking away throughout the day to maintain. You aren't like that. You're still in control. But you're kind of glad she isn't, because she's a dreamy, drowsy type. Not overly talkative, just smiling and happy, always happy. When you have to send her on a last minute, unscheduled drop, she agrees with no problem.

But one night she ruins the whole thing. Your arms are wrapped around her thighs, your tongue is on her clit, and she gasps it out: _Oh my God, Alex...oh, fuck, I love you_. Your mouth is occupied, she doesn't seem to expect a response, but your insides turn to ice, a powerful wave of something almost like hatred rippling through your body.

Two days later, you don't wake her up in time to get to the airport. You snort a line in the bathroom, in too much of a hurry to shoot, quietly pack your stuff, pluck all the smack she has on her out of her purse, and leave her sleeping in the hotel. You never see her again.

* * *

There's a Christmas that coincides with one of your brief touch downs in the States. You're staying in New York with some of the others, there are important clients in the city, but you drive back home to check on the house and go by your mother's cemetery plot.

There's a potted arrangement of yellow and red tulips; they're withering and dying from the cold, but even so they look incongruously cheerful and saturated amid the dead grass and patches of dirty snow. For a second you're confused as to who would think to do that, who would bother in the winter, who would know to pick those particular flowers. You decide it's probably Beth.

You sit in front of the grave for awhile, your mom's leather jacket pulled tight around you, staring at the date that's over three years removed. When your eyes well up and tears blur your vision, it's not because this place, this headstone, makes you feel closer to her; it's because it doesn't.

You fucking hate Christmas.

Your mom always worked a lot during the holidays, getting all the overtime she could so she could make sure you had presents. Her philosophy was quantity over quality; she wanted a crowded tree, the illusion of plenty. It's why you'd get off brand shoes and thrift store jackets and secondhand toys instead of just one nice, expensive brand name thing the other girls at school made you want. It's stupid, twenty-some years later, but you feel suddenly guilty for letting them make you so unappreciative.

Once, she'd worked the madhouse that was Wal-Mart on a Christmas Eve and taken her payment as a gift card. You were seven years old, and she brought you along, let you run wild with a cart in the toy section, adding up prices in your head, not allowed to check out until precisely midnight.

You stand up to go when you can't stop thinking about the stash you left back at the house. It's not a physical craving, nothing like that, you aren't at that point these days; you've just become impatient with feeling anything bad. It's hard when you know you don't have to.

You leave your mom's grave to get high. The sentence structures itself in your head, flashing like a neon sign, objectively horrible, and you shudder a little, nearly gagging on your first genuine taste of shame. You try not to wonder what she'd think of you now.

* * *

The day after Christmas you drive your rental car back to the city and go to a nightclub with colleagues. You're floating, feeling good, there's a girl on your lap, she's got red hair and you feel pretty smug about that. You don't have a type, don't need one, you can have whichever of these boring, naive young girls you want.

Then you see her.

Maybe.

It's a flash of blonde hair and a silver top you think you might recognize. She's moving toward the door, about to leave, and there's a brunette with her, a little shorter, probably Polly, that could totally be Polly. What a goddamn amazing coincidence, this is perfect, you nudge the girl off your lap and stand, grabbing her hand, pulling her after you as you head for the door.

"Are we leaving?"

You brush past the bouncer and into the street, head swiveling wildly. The streetlights are so, so bright. You don't see her.

The girl you're with misinterprets the hasty exit, grabbing you by the hips and pulling you into a kiss, giggling at her own boldness even as her lips hit yours. You wrench away. "Hold on, not now." Save it. Save it for when Piper's there to watch.

"Hotel?" The girl asks hopefully.

"Not _now_. Just shut up for a second..." You pull out your phone, still scanning the street. Dial her, listen for the ring. She needs to see this. See how great you're doing.

Or.

Or or _or_.

See what she's done to you.

That from the quiet voice in the back of your head, digging dirty fingernails into your brain and prying away its protective coating. You hang up the phone, angry. Determined to prove that wrong.

The night breaks apart after that. Back in the club, the girl following, the graffiti walled bathroom, her wanting to snort, you laughing and telling her it's useless, preparing the syringes, pulling a shoelace from your own boot to tie around your arm. The bathroom stall, seizing her wrist, guiding it between your legs, getting off, teeth digging into the skin of your wrist so you don't scream, the club again, the dance floor, flashing lights, the smell of sweat, shiny clothes and gleaming make up. A different girl, her hips moving with yours, her arms over her head and her eyes closed like she's having a spiritual experience, you spinning and defiant, your hands all over, your hands driving her crazy, you _know_ they're driving her crazy. Stumbling into the street, the night cold and bright, hailing a taxi, your hands up her shirt in the backseat, making out like teenagers, her eyes going wide when you pull out a thick wad of cash, paying the driver, overtipping. The hotel, her eyes even bigger at the luxury of the lobby. The slow slow elevator, her asking _What do you_ _do_? Your honest answer, _I work for an international drug cartel_, her uncertainty, you laughing, her giggling, her relief, her tongue swirling the shell of your ear. Stumbling down the hallway, muscles wobbly, hallway spinning, grabbing her arm to keep steady, her smiling like it's something sweet. Four tries to get the room key card to work, the bedroom, the bed, her dress coming off, her fingers fumbling with your bra. _Wait, wait a second_. The drugs in your nightstand, her face stricken with fear, pulling her clothes back on, you grabbing her wrist, kissing he neck, _It's fine you don't have to do it I'm not gonna fucking force you_, her staring at the needles, so judgmental, so out of her depth, _Sorry I should go I really should go goodnight_, the door slamming. She was boring anyway. Not that pretty. Not a great kisser. You, alone. Injecting. Relief. Rush. Your hand between your own legs, fingers stroking, eyes closed. Thinking of _her_.

* * *

The next day you fly to Cambodia and look at the recent call list in your phone, the cringe worthy sight of her name. Your name is in her phone, too, **Alex**, illuminated as a missed call, the third in three years. Or maybe it's just a string of numbers. Maybe she deleted the contact. Probably did.

You tell yourself that's better, less humiliating. If she's just perplexed by this random number, calling her in the middle of the night. You no longer have any confidence it was her you were following. Or what the hell you expected to happen if it was.

* * *

"Vause! Vause, open the fucking door!"

Your eyes open slowly. You're on top of the covers, wearing last night's clothes. You've only been back at the hotel for a few hours; you can still feel the effects of the last shot.

"GET THE FUCK UP!" Fahri's voice sounds from the other side of the door.

You groan and get to your feet, going to let him into the hotel room before he gives himself a goddamn heart attack. What could possibly be so damn urgent?

His face is smoldering with rage, and you roll your eyes at him like he's a mild annoyance at best. "_What_?"

"Where the fuck is Thompson?"

It takes you a second to figure out who he means. Ellie Thompson. One of the kids, the mules, you were with her last night, at the bar, you'd taken her into the bathroom but didn't invite her back. "Fuck if I know."

"Let's try again. Do you know where she's _not_?"

You stare blankly. You're so bored with him.

"She's _not_ on the flight to Munich." He's given up on the yelling; his voice is dangerously quiet. "Which left two goddamn hours ago." Well. That is bad. You know it's bad, even before Fahri adds, "Kubra's waiting for his shit. This needed to get done _today_."

"I know."

"You _know_?" He makes a face, gives a sarcastic shrug. "So I should tell Kubra...what? That you just _forgot_ to give the order? Or...you were too busy fucking her to make her aware of travel arrangements?"

He's giving you this expectant look, but you're not sure what else to tell him. Nothing to be done about it now. It was a mistake, but it's over, it's done, it's out of everyone's control. Fahri's never been good at accepting that.

He makes a scoffing sound in the back of his throat, and stares at you with an expression bordering on disgust. "Forget it. No point talking to you when you're like this. _Useless_."

The final word stings, it feels unfair, and you sigh loudly. "Fuck, Fahri..."

He stops on his way out, looks back at you. You wait, wanting something more from him, some glimmer of understanding or sympathy. You always catch yourself at that, and it's so fucking stupid, stupid to be thirty-three years old with daddy issues. You don't want a father, real or otherwise, you just want your mom, want her with a childish intensity that's embarrassing.

Fahri just shakes his head and goes for the door. Before he slams it, he mutters rhetorically, "What the fuck happened to you, Vause?"

The door slams behind him and you're alone again, suddenly, annoyingly sober.

Happy fucking birthday to you.

* * *

_Hiya, kiddo. Just callin' to check in. And to tell you I ran into Darla Wedge at the grocery store, you know, whats-her-face's mom, the bratty cheerleader looking one. I'll tell you all about it, you'll love it. Just gimme a call whenever. Love you, babe. Be safe, and tell Piper I say hi._

Fuck her fuck her _fuck_ her. Fuck her for having a piece of this.

_Hiya, kiddo. Just callin' to check in. And to tell you I ran into Darla Wedge at the grocery store, you know, whats-her-face's mom, the bratty cheerleader looking one. I'll tell you all about it, you'll love it. Just gimme a call whenever. Love you, babe. Be safe, and te - _

You try this sometimes, cutting it off early, but you always know why you're doing it, which defeats the fucking purpose.

_Hiya, kiddo. Just callin' to check in. And to tell you I ran into Darla Wedge at the grocery store, you know, whats-her-face's mom, the bratty cheerleader looking one. I'll tell you all about it, you'll love it. Just gimme a call whenever. Love you, babe. Be safe, and tell Piper I say hi. _

_Hiya, kiddo. Just callin' to check in. And to tell you I ran into Darla Wedge at the grocery store, you know, whats-her-face's mom, the bratty cheerleader looking one. I'll tell you all about it, you'll love it. Just gimme a call whenever. Love you, babe. Be sa -_

_Hiya, kiddo_. _Just_ -

_Hiya kiddo_.

* * *

"There's a chance we're being watched."

Fahri delivers this news eight months after your missed drop. There's a rumor that one of the top clients was picked up by the FBI. There's no proof, and nothing seems to have come of it...which either means the rumor was false and nothing's going on, or it's possible they've given up information, and thus their own arrest is being kept quiet to give priority to catching the distributors.

You do the responsible thing; wean yourself off the drugs, go back to the once a week habit. You find yourself on airplanes, sweaty and shaky and the object of wary stares from the flight attendants and other passengers. More than once, you end up crouched in the cramped, narrow bathroom, vomiting into the metal toilet bowl.

You're alone even more often; everyone important is cycling in separate circles, making arrangements in brief conversations over burner phones, keeping the mules in fast and frequent rotation. You don't mind so much; for the past year, you've been out of the inner circle anyway, sick of Fahri and his patronizing disappointment, Kubra and his warning glares.

* * *

You're in New Zealand, and you're coming down off a high when it happens. It's a Wednesday. You've haven't heard from anyone all week, not since the last drop, and there's not much to do except wait. And indulge yourself.

It's been over a year since that warning. Everyone's still being careful, but it's starting to feel perfunctory, more of a hassle than a necessity.

And then they come for you. A knock on the hotel door, someone saying your full name from the other side, demanding you open up. There's nowhere to go, and just like that it's all over.

You have to quell an instinct to laugh when they put you in handcuffs, because really, what the fuck? Idiotically, ridiculously, one of the first things you think of is Piper. The way she used to ask if you weren't afraid of going to prison. You always used to snark back some flippant response - _Why_? _Worried I'd have to leave you for my new prison wife_? - but it's only now that you realize how genuinely you'd never _really_ believed this could happen.

The extradition is all arranged, and you're flown back to the States in shackles, a US Marshall sitting smugly beside you. There are four others on the flight, unimportant mules who look scared shitless.

You're stuck in the county jail for three days until the arraignment, and it's a good thing you've been spacing out the uses, because you're only just starting to crave when they take you to the courthouse. It's a RICO case, around thirty members of the ring being charged at once. Kubra isn't among them. Neither is Fahri, or even a few of the other high up traffickers you considered yourself on par with.

Slowly, you start to piece it together.

They'd planned for this. Bought second citizenships, placed themselves in countries without extradition treaties - there's a whispered rumor that Kubra's in Mongola. They'd known it was coming.

You hadn't been told. You are no longer important enough. You'd gotten sloppy, missed too much.

Fucked yourself right over.

They start setting bail. When they get to you, the DA says, "Ms. Vause has no ties to the community, Your Honor...to the whole country, come to that. Deceased mother, estranged father, no other close family...and considering the height of her position within the cartel, the amount of time she's facing...she's a high flight risk."

_The amount of time she's facing._

So they take you back to the jail and there's panic smothering your brain like chloroform. The only thing you manage to think, dimly, is what happened to your stuff from the hotel? Where's your mother's jacket? Your cell phone with her voicemail, her entreaty to tell Piper she says hi? You don't know, and you likely won't know for years and years.

It's over. It's done. There's nothing you can do about it.

You're far too familiar with that feeling.

* * *

That night you lay awake on the hard cot in the not-quite-dark, shivering and aching and drenched in cold sweat.

Your cellmate rolls her eyes and laughs at you, calls you a _fuckin_ _junkie_. You hate hate _hate_ yourself, hate that you're this person, that you've ended up here, you hate this place, you have to get the fuck out of here.

This wasn't supposed to happen. This was never supposed to be you.

The withdrawal makes your eyes water anyway, so you stuff a pillowcase deep into your mouth and let yourself cry.

* * *

Three days later, when the worst of it's over, you meet with your lawyer and do the only thing you can. "I'll tell them anything they want to know. Just make me a fucking deal."

He comes back at the end of the week and says the DA's willing to meet with you. They want promised testimonies against everyone else who's been arrested. They want names of anyone who ever had any level of involvement, no matter how small. It could shave decades off your time, depending on how much you give them.

_Decades_. Your stomach rolls sickeningly at the thought. It's as bad as the withdrawal.

You lay awake that night and construct a list. Every mule you ever fucked and the ones you didn't. Every dealer or trafficker who cut and run years ago.

Anyone who ever carried a suitcase full of money. Even just once.

* * *

"Anyone else?"

You hesitate.

It should feel good.

You already made this decision. You have no reason to protect her. In fact, you have every reason not to.

Her name is a drug loaded into a syringe, the one ounce of satisfaction you can find in all this, the ultimate_ fuck her_ .

Fuck her for leaving.

Fuck her for never once looking back.

Fuck her for still mattering, still hurting, after all this time.

Fuck her for making you weak.

Fuck her for turning you into _this. _

Her name rolls up your throat and catches on the tip of your tongue.

The syringe is loaded. You find a vein, stick in the needle. You think about your mom, about crying on the floor of a funeral home with a phone in your hand, making a call no one answered.

"Piper."

Push the plunger.

The DA gives you a blank look, and you remember her first name means nothing to him. There's no power to it, not to anyone but you.

"Piper Chapman." Your voice is flat, but you stumble once. "In 2003, she was traveling with...with the ring. She carried a suitcase full of money into Brussels."

You get a sudden, vivid flash of yourself and Piper, reflected in a mirror, you arms around her from behind, your hands up her shirt, easily, guiltlessly talking her out of her fear.

The needle breaks off in your arm, and it's like that old junkie horror story, traveling through the blood vessels to your brain or heart or lungs, this tiny thing that could turn lethal.

It doesn't feel as good as you'd expected.

Mostly you're just thinking how long it's been since you said her name out loud.

* * *

A/N:_ Well, there you have it! Hope you guys enjoyed the conclusion, even though it was a little less focused...I knew I wanted to get to Alex naming Piper, but that's a lot of time to cover, and I like to keep these introspective pieces fairly short and vignette-y, rather than try to delve into the full plot of it all._

_Thinking about possibly doing a very brief Piper companion piece to this one, but will most definitely be working on the next Young Blood sequel to post soon. In the meantime, love to hear what you thought of this one as a whole._


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